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Saturday, May 8, 2010

Sandstorm Action

Well when I woke up this morning I would not have been able to predict what happened today. I had a really hard (hot - it was 35C already at 8am) run this morning then heavy weight session at the gym. The weather was really hot and sunny so we went to the pool to relax and tend to our sore mussles.

Carl phoned as he landed at the airport say that he had seen a big storm coming, it looked like some clouds were coming in but nothing much, as we relaxed watching TV suddenly the wind went from 0-5 to 30+ knots and I realised that the storm had just hit.

If I squinted my eyes I could almost imagine that I was in Portugal driving from Cascais to Guincho - I really miss Portual!

Plenty of wood and building materials flying around.

I am not sure the sand and dust is really that good for the paintwork!

I rushed to the beach, with all the san I could hardly see where I was going and was on the look out for flying bits of wood etc from the construction sites. It was clear when I got to the beach that my trusty 4.7 Fire would be rather big, being the smallest I have here I rigged anyway, it wasn't long before a few kiters and a local sailer turned up to see what the deal was.

30 knots in Bahrain is rather rather, with the higher gusts it was probably the windiest I have seen here, even if it was only for a short period.

Looks rather windy! I guess I will have to take my 4.7! 4.0 would have been rather better.

I had a few runs but was totally maxed, crashed a forward but was starting to feel a little more confortable. On my next run the wind picked up some more and I was finding it hard to hook in and sail in any sort of straight line. The sand meant that I could hardly see the beach and the shifting wind made it difficult to sail.

A different experience! As I came home the radio for calling for people to take care and watch out for dangerous conditions.

Yesterday I went for a paddle with the GPS strapped to my board. I have been using a 115ltr windsurf board without the front straps, works great as a paddle board and it is great exerice for the arms in prep for surfing.

1.95km paddle, 31 minutes. I will do some longer paddles and also try to improve times.

Lots of action and exercise this weekend, I think I am going to retire to the sofa and watch a good movie.